The sun is shining, school is out, and the smells of sunblock and barbecue can only mean one thing–summer is here! Summer is always an exciting season for our customers as it usually means more fun in the sun with friends and family. It’s also peak travel season around the world, which can also be a bit more difficult to navigate when scheduling your volunteers. But just as quickly as it came, summer will come to a close and everyone will be transitioning into fall. The transition from season to season often calls for volunteer schedulers to make special adjustments in their volunteer schedules. Luckily, Volunteer Scheduler Pro has a few built-in features that can make the transition easier for everyone and keep your volunteer roster full.

Here are a couple of key features schedulers can use this summer to help you make the most out of Volunteer Scheduler Pro software:

Remind volunteers to input vacation dates

According to a survey by AAA, more than one-third of Americans will take a family vacation over the summer. Some of your regular volunteers might be out of town, but you can still keep your rosters full with Volunteer Scheduler Pro. VSP has built-in email templates that make it easy to send important information to volunteers.

Use the “Request for updates to availability” template to remind volunteers to input their vacation dates, which allows volunteers to update their summer availability, so you can keep shifts filled before creating summer volunteer schedules. In this email template you can include a little blurb to remind people to input their summer vacation dates.

Collecting all of this information before the schedule is created saves valuable time and reduces the amount of swaps that need to be made later on.

If you’re unfamiliar with emailer, check out the short video we created to help you learn how to use VSP’s Emailer feature.

Display special summer activities in VSP

Do you have volunteer outings or events planned this summer? The Web Terminal is a great place to display any summer events or special announcements. The terminal functions as an online bulletin board for your volunteers, helping volunteers stay up to date with special summer events. You can easily customize your organization’s Web Terminal to make it unique to the season with different headers, font styles, sizes, and colors.

Beyond using VSP to stay up to date on seasonal scheduling, there are plenty of other ways to keep your volunteers informed about any changes. Using the Emailer feature you can send an email to volunteers inviting them to follow your Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. Social media accounts not only keep them engaged with the organization, but can also serve as additional modes of communication with your workforce.

Are you still on the fence about Volunteer Scheduler Pro but want to see these features in action? Start a 15-Day Free Trial now.

Do the holidays bring your organization a wave of new volunteers? Volunteers play an integral role in the life of an organization- not just during the holidays, but all year long. Check out the ideas below to work toward creating and sustaining lasting relationships between you and your volunteers.

Pittsburgh Action Against Rape is an invaluable organization working in their community to bring an end to sexual violence. Not only does PAAR provide comprehensive advocacy and support for victims, they also reach out to the community to offer a wide range of prevention and awareness programs.

The verdict is in: non-profit organizations love the latest update to Volunteer Scheduler Pro! Feedback from users about last month’s release is that VSP 3.6 makes it easier than ever for large organizations to build community and retain volunteers using volunteer scheduling software.

VSP 3.6 empowers non-profits with more ways to engage their volunteer base. One of the new features generating the most buzz among schedulers is Shift Leaders: a whole new way to grant special online privileges to individuals who are in charge of a job or shift. It’s never been easier for your leaders to easily connect with and engage the volunteers they oversee. Check out a video tutorial of the Shift Leaders feature, visit our website for an overview of all the major additions to VSP, or check out some of the frequently asked questions about VSP 3.6.

The new features were inspired by VSP’s mission of helping nonprofits leverage and increase volunteerism through effective scheduling. VSP 3.6 is available free to all subscribers. Interested in learning more? Leave a comment or get in touch today!

Non-profits come in all shapes and sizes – and each has its own unique scheduling challenges. For the Mission Inn Foundation in Riverside, California, scheduling 1,365 volunteer hours over the Christmas season was an extremely daunting task.

When it comes to volunteer scheduling, most people do it the way it has always been done. But every once in a while it’s worth stepping back and looking at what your organization needs before starting to schedule. You’ll be glad you did.

The most common approach to volunteer scheduling is the self sign-up model. The self sign-up model works well if your volunteer opportunities change frequently and you want volunteers to sign up on the fly. It’s also a popular method for event scheduling. You can streamline the process of filling shifts by letting your volunteers enroll and select shifts online.

Volunteering is a thriving business. Yes, that’s right. A business. It’s estimated that 62.8 million adults volunteered more than 8.1 million hours in 2010. That’s a service valued at almost $173 billion. Here are a few tips to tap into the volunteer fund:

Use Social Media: Publicizing your event on Facebook and Twitter gets your organization in front of volunteers who may not find you via traditional methods. Expand your social network and publicize your volunteer opportunities. It’s a powerful combination.

Invest in Volunteer Scheduling Software: Capturing volunteer interest is critical when building your volunteer base. Scheduling software is a quick and affordable way to equip your organization with volunteer-friendly tools like online sign up, email reminders, and 24/7 access to volunteer opportunities.

Make it Fun: Recent studies show that more people are volunteering for the social aspect. In order to keep your volunteers coming back, make sure that they know their work is appreciated and that they have fun while doing it.

Make it a Match: Everyone likes the feeling of accomplishment. Make sure every volunteer experience is a successful one by matching volunteers with opportunities that meet their skill set. Doing so will make your job easier and will result in happier volunteers.

Have you had success in capturing and retaining volunteers? Share what’s working for you and help others tap into the volunteer fund.

Most people look for ministry scheduling software because they either think that they spend too much time scheduling, or because their volunteers are frustrated about scheduling conflicts. Clearly, as a church grows, scheduling the volunteers or ministers that help with services or masses gets difficult very quickly. You have to be careful to prevent conflicts, to make sure everybody gets a fair chance to serve, often to keep families serving together across ministries, along with a slew of other complicated considerations. Ministry scheduling software helps people address all those intricate scheduling needs and put together a schedule that is free of conflicts much more quickly and easily than it can be done by hand or with Excel.